El Senor

After my day in Chapel Hill, I headed back towards Knightdale to meet up with my friends and have dinner.  They chose a local place, to give me a taste of what their weeks are like and what it’s like being, you know, normal… something I’ve never been. 

As we sat down, a basket of house made tortilla chips arrived with small dishes and a miniature carafe of salsa.  Love having our own individual dishes – I suppose so if we wanted to add hot sauce, we could, or if we were sick, we could still dip with abandon.  Love. 

I got really excited when I noticed horchata on the menu, under the drinks section.  I love horchata – and after quickly checking to make sure there was no coconut in it – I ordered it.  The waiter seemed surprised.  Regardless, even better?  The drink was no more than $3 (might have been $2) and it was refilled every time I drank half or more.  Crazytown!  That would never happen in NYC.  I don’t think anyone else orders that down there…

For a few dollars ($3-4?) we ordered a cheese dip and happily dipped the chips in this.  Oh my gosh, this is the liquid cheese I strive to make.  Creamy, tangy but not too sharp, just perfection.  Smooth… lovely… wonderful.  I wanted to drink this.  I am not even entirely sure what kind of cheese that was…

My dish came with an ‘avocado salad’ – basically lettuce, tomatoes, some shredded cheeses, and a scoop of guacamole.  I ate this happily because I love avocados, and it tasted pretty good. 

As for my dish – apparently one of the most expensive items at $10! – the steak ranchero, described as “grilled rib eye steak topped with sauteed vegetables, served with rice, beans, tortillas” – I saw this land in front of me and thought okay, that makes sense. 

I thought there was just a small piece of steak, which would have been fine given the price, but…

I pushed aside the veggies to reveal an entire flat piece of steak!  Whoa.  There was no way I was going to finish that. 

Though I wasn’t asked how I wanted the steak to be cooked, it was just that shade of medium (closer to well) where it retained its tenderness, thankfully.  It was very flavorful, and I had no problems eating what I could… and then packing up a lot of it to go (that was a LOT of food!).  It also came with tortillas but I’m not inclined towards tortillas much so I didn’t eat those… but they made a great burrito/taco the next night! 

Yvo says: Yum!  Unlimited horchata for the price of a soda, reasonably priced apps and entrees… I would love a local Mexican place like this to open near me!  (And this place was run by actual Hispanic people; I don’t know if they were Mexican for sure, but they were definitely Hispanic.)  Who knew I’d fall in love with a Mexican restaurant in a suburb of Raleigh?  (Not me… I’m so NYC-centric.)
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